Healthy Carrot Cake: Happy Mother's Day to Me!

 

 

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL YOU WONDERFUL MOMS! 

 

 

 

In celebration of Mother's Day... I made myself a cake.

 

This is the only magazine for which I have a subscription and it feels just like Christmas each time it comes in the mail... I can't wait to open it up!

Ahhh, you had me at Carrot Cake!

Oh, this looks so good... do you see that nutrition information in the lower right corner.  This is a recipe makeover.  Before... 430 calories per serving.  After... 177 calories per serving.

 

 So of course I had to make it... as you can see, I made two. 

 

I brought one cake to share with all of my lady friends at my Thursday afternoon knitting group at Grandma's Beads and Yarn in Canon City.  This shop is in the back of Word's of Life, a bookstore and gift shop on the Historic Main Street.  The owner of Word's of Life now owns the yarn shop as well.  I spend a lot of time here.  You can see all the gorgeous, colorful yarn in the background.

 

The gals at the knit shop sure liked the cake...

 

 

I put the second cake in this pie pan... my Christmas present from Zach.  When he saw this in the fridge when he got home from school, he was thinking I had made pie for him and he was horribly disappointed to see I did not make pie!  A "terrible mean trick!" he said.

 

 

Oh, do you see the fresh orange zest in the icing!?  Mmmmmm! 

Oh, I like taking photos of this pretty cake!

 

 

Sorry, I got a little carried away with photography.  I wanted to show you how pretty this cake is!

 

I had a slice of cake last night for dessert after dinner with some Tangerine Orange herbal tea. 

Sadly no one in my family will even try this cake. Happy Mother's Day to me!

Carrot Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Icing
from www.cleaneatingmag.com

Ingredients:

For the cake:

cooking spray
3 large carrots, ends trimmed and peeled (I think I used way more carrots that that)
1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. sea salt (I used iodized salt)
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom (optional)
2 large eggs
2/3 cup maple sugar (I used 2/3 cup graulated sugar and 1 tablespoon real maple syrup)
1/4 cup safflower oil (I used Wesson vegetable oil)
1/4 cup low-fat plain yogurt (do not use non fat or Greek)

For the icing:

1/2 cup Neufchatel, low fat cream cheese (room temperature)
1/4 cup raw honey (I used clover honey from bear-shaped container)
1 tsp. orange zest

Sorry, but it's Mother's Day and I don't feel like typing so I snapped photos.

I brought a 3rd of the cake to my good friend, Tracy.  She was excited.  She let's me hold her new pug puppy and I bring her cake!  It's a very symbiotic relationship (Sorry, I'm a Biology Nerd!)



Me and Sweet Belle (grainy cell phone photo)